Evan Prodromou wrote:
EM> All in all, I think this would greatly reduce the time spent EM> on fighting vandalism, and allow us to focus on more important EM> matters, like creating an encyclopedia.
Or, y'know, fostering the community that's needed to create an encyclopedia.
Absolutely. One of my biggest concerns is that problem users exhaust good contributors and make them snap at each other. Problem users cause us to suspect the motives of good people too often.
Some people have a strong internal compass to guide their behavior in a good way. Others, many many others, are basically good people but who will conform to whatever a culture has as norms. A culture in which vandals are allowed to pester people is a culture which will cause more good people to dabble in vandalism and pranks.
One of the brilliant insights of the Wikipedia community is that soft security can work, that most people are basically good. So I'm always in favor of anything that meets my "strict scrutiny" test of being costly to bad behavior while not costing much for good behavior.
--Jimbo